


You Don't Wanna See These Guys (Without Their Masks On)

by NoHolds



Series: Shadows in the River Fog [4]
Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: Basically, F/F, Gen, Lady Boyle's Last Party, Low Chaos, Low Chaos Corvo, Post-Game, The Boyles, a fix-it fic for the creepy low-chaos ending of the Boyle Party mission
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-06
Updated: 2016-04-06
Packaged: 2018-05-31 17:22:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6479392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoHolds/pseuds/NoHolds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Waverly Boyle has never liked parties, and to throw one now, with the rest of Dunwall drowning in plague, seems especially tasteless. Nonetheless, appearances must be kept, and so her and her sisters open their doors and invite the wealthy in to trade drinks and secrets.</p><p>Waverly never sees the end of that party, secreted away on a fishing boat with nothing but an apology and a knife, both given to her by the desperate shadow of the man that was once Corvo Attano.</p><p>Years later, when her kidnapper is just bones at the bottom of the ocean, Waverly seeks out Corvo again, to see what became of the man who showed her mercy that day, so long ago.</p><p> To see what has happened to the city she's left behind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Don't Wanna See These Guys (Without Their Masks On)

**Author's Note:**

> Title from The Autopsy Garland, by The Mountain Goats.

You have never liked parties the way your sisters do.

There is too much that can go wrong. Too many hands passing too close to your drink, too may 'accidents' waiting to happen.

You know that there are people who want you dead, and you know how easy it would be, killing you at your own party, in your own home- a wall of light misfiring, a stray bone in your stew, a loose stone falling from a rooftop.

Then- no more Waverly Boyle, and you would be carted to your last party in a coffin, stiff-limbed, stinking of formaldehyde and rosewater.

It would be a grand party, to be sure; the Boyle sisters do not half-hog _anything,_ let alone their own funerals, but you would not be around to see it, and you do not much care for parties, anyway.

But appearances must be kept, and so you with your sisters dress each in masks and matching gowns, red and black and white, and you host a party. The guests arrive with their faces done up like animals, their fine clothes like a different, subtler kind of animal, they trade secrets and wicked laughter over glasses of brandy.

No, you don't like parties one bit.

Midway through the evening, you slip into the bathroom to take a breath, and the door closes a beat too slowly behind you.

When you turn around, there is a man lurking in the doorway like a shadow, watching you. He is unsettlingly still, and for all that you are inches taller than him in heels, he seems to tower over you.

“Someone's trying to kill you,” He rumbles, in a voice like a ship run aground.

He is not in ostentatious finery like your other guests- is rather wearing a dark, long coat and polished boots. His mask is all cold steel, glassy eyes- the face of the reaper that has been haunting Dunwall for months now.

It makes you... wonder. That the person bringing you news of a plot against you is dressed as an assassin. But, nobles enjoy their games, and are just twisted enough to think this one.

And besides, this man cannot be Dunwall's assassin. He is too small, too neat, with a lord's bearing in his narrow shoulders and a shine to his shoes.

So you follow him to the basement of your home; “I've got a boat waiting for you,” he'd said.

But he closes the basement door behind you, and turns to look at you with those unsettling, black-glass eyes.

“Please don't scream,” he says, voice low and polite.

You see the sword at his belt, now, well-hidden in the folds of his coat, and you stay quiet, all of your old worries crowded choking in your throat.

The man sighs, lifts off the mask. Underneath is-

is Covro Attano. The man who'd killed the last empress, the probable father of the next one. _He's_ the reaper of Dunwall, and wouldn't that be so _fascinating_ if you weren't about to die, if your heart wasn't beating rapid-fire-deafening against the walls of your chest.

He gives you an apologetic sort of grimace, his dry lips cracking (you take a petty, disconnected kind of deathbed solace at the sight of him like this, clearly himself haunted, hair greasy, eyes shadowed, handsome nose broken crooked).

“Turn around, please,” he says, and you do, and the next instant there's coarse rope looping around your wrists. You'd be panicked, you think, except you are so lightheaded this all feels more a dream than an abduction.

Snatched up by a ruined shadow of the man who used to be the Royal Bodyguard, at your own party, about to die in your fruit cellar. The stuff of nightmares, or fairy tales.

Corvo picks you up like you weigh nothing, lays you in a rowboat waiting in the sewers.

It's all strangely gentle, this slow unraveling of your life. Corvo has slender careful hands and soft eyes, and there is no roughness in him, towards you. No malice.

Still. Still, he has you tied in up in the bottom of an old rowboat, and river water is seeping into your clothes, and the smell of rotted fish is clogging your throat so you nearly can't breathe. Your pulse thrums like some caught hare's, so loud in your ears you're almost sure Corvo can hear it.

“You're a foul man, Corvo Attano,” you say, distantly, and he ducks his head, like he truly is ashamed.

After a moment, he crouches low to look you in the eyes.

“Listen to me,” he says. “Soon, a man will come down these stairs and take you out of here. He is not a good man.”

Corvo _sighs._ You feel like choking from your gut to your tongue, too afraid to jerk away when he grabs one of your hands. Something sharp presses into your palm, stinging, and you _do_ pull away, then. But for all Corvo's small size he is strong, his hands like iron, and you do not gain any ground.

“If you're going to kill me-” your voice is as shaky as the rest of you, your blood static in your viens.

“No,” says Corvo. “No, listen. Take this.” The sting in your hand is sharper, now, insistent, and the rough, wooden handle of a knife presses crooked into your palm, the blade biting at your fingers.

“I have to go now,” Corvo says. “But listen- you have to pretend to be asleep. When you get the chance, cut yourself loose and don't come back.”

You look at him, feel tears pressing at your eyes.

“Do you understand?” His voice is low, urgent, and you nod, the knife heavy and solid in your hand. You notice for the first time how loose the ropes around your wrists are.

Corvo _sighs,_ again, turns to pull the mask back on. “Good luck,” he says, voice muffled, and presses a gag into your mouth.

You pin your eyes shut and try not to shake with the fear of it.

* * *

You cut your wrists loose when the boat makes port, and when your kidnapper reaches for you you slit his throat and slip away into the docks, stow away on the first ship out of Dunwall.

You are nauseous the entire journey across the sea, and you think you may never get the blood out from under your nails.

You stumble off the boat hungry and sea-legs-shaky and half blind from the dark off the ship's hold, but-

a second chance is a second chance. You will not waste it.

* * *

Just shy of a decade passes before you make it back to Dunwall.

You have a home in Serkonos, where you washed ashore all those years ago, and a family, and you do not intend to _stay_ in Dunwall any longer than you have to.

Serkonos may be too hot for you, most days, all mist and sun, but you have carved yourself a place there, and it is _home._ Coming back from the dead in place to which you have no ties would serve no one.

No. You will not stay in Dunwall. But you have wormed your way into Serkonos's merchant guild, and they have sent you as an ambassador to the court, with a trade agreement for the Empress to sign.

You do not mind, overmuch. You have heard _news_ of Dunwall, of a new Empress and a cured plague and a golden era,

news of the restoration of a man who showed you mercy so long ago you are not sure he will even remember.

You are _itching_ to see what truth there is to these rumors.

* * *

Dunwall's court is much how you remember it, and you dance and gossip all night, drumming your fingers for a chance to creep closer to the throne. You still do not like parties.

Somewhere around midnight, the crowd finally thins enough to allow you close enough to the empress.

Emily is indeed on the throne, thick in the throes of adolescence. She is all gawky limbs and acne spots, but you can see the beautiful young woman she is bound to become in a few years time, and you are glad.

Glad, of the smile in her eyes, glad that she was given the chance to make Dunwall great again, glad-

glad for the man at her side.

Corvo Attano is older than you remember, and cleaner-cut, dark hair pulled back neat, a hint of silver at his temples. His coat is long and fine and dark, still, but open in the front, and his clothes are bright and clean underneath.

The mask is nowhere to be seen.

You catch his eye and he smiles, glances away, does a double-take.

He looks frightened, then, steps half in front of Emily, and oh.

_Oh._

Oh, the years have not been as kind to them as you had thought, because Emily tenses at Corvo's almost imperceptible half-step, and she has her hand on a sword just as quick as Corvo does, and you wonder.

Wonder what that little girl must have seen while her father was infiltrating parties and sparing nobles.

But you wave dismissively, _I'm not a threat,_ and Corvo relaxes, and Emily regains her posture, and it's all so _smooth_ you doubt that anyone noticed but you.

Strange instincts, though, for a child to reach for her sword before her bodyguard.

* * *

You wander away from the party, to a balcony off-limits to the crowd, and Corvo shadows you as you knew he would.

“Will Emily be safe without you?” You ask, and hate how easily your voice slips back into that high, affected noble's accent.

Corvo just laughs, stands with his back to you, forearms resting on the railing.

“She can take care of herself,” he says, a note of pride in his voice.

You move to stand beside him, watch the sky in silence, for a while. The racket of the party filters to you wordless and distant.

“So,” Corvo says, eventually. “You made it.”

You laugh (and, if your laugh has gotten rougher since you left Dunwall, you don't pretend mind). “Yes. Killed that man as soon as we stopped and took the first boat out of the city. To Serkonos, if you'd believe it.”

Corvo looks over at you, sidelong. Considering. “You've tanned,” he says.

...Yes. You suppose you have.

“Waveryly Boyle,” Corvo says, at length. “Why did you come back here?”

You laugh, again. “It's _Espina_ , now.”

Corvo blinks.

“Waverly _Espina._ ” you hold up your left hand, the band on your ring finger throwing back starlight.

Corvo looks appraises you. “Are you happy, then?”

“Quite,” you say, and mean it. “No one tries to assassinate a merchant's ambassador. And I've grown quite fond of blood sausage.”

Corvo shakes his head from side to side, like an animal trying to dislodge water. “But why are you _here?_ ”

A pause.

“To say thank you, I suppose. And to return this.” You hold out the knife he'd given you in the basement that day. It's an inelegant thing, really, a cracked wooden handle, a wide blade meant for gutting fish.

Corvo eyes you, eyes the knife (held out handle first, of course, because it would be a shame for Corvo to kill you, now, over a misunderstanding). Eventually, he shakes his head, a smile pulling at his mouth.

“Keep it,” he says, eventually. “You never know when you might need it.”

* * *

You are back to Serkonos within the month, back to the tropical sun and the humidity and the white-sand beaches where you stumbled ashore, blind and bloody, so long ago.

Your children greet you at the front door, cheering, wrapping themselves around your legs and waist. Your wife greets you in the kitchen with a smile and a kiss on the cheek, and you are very happy to be home.

* * *

You live to a comfortable old age, that way, hair gone the colour of steel wool, skin brushed brown and leathery by the summer sun.

The knife goes dull in a drawer in your office, unneeded but not forgotten.

You only get one second chance, after all.

And you look at the life you have built, here with your family in the too-hot sun, and think you would not want a third chance.

Not ever.

 

**Author's Note:**

> In my mind, Lady Boyle escapes and marries a nice young lady and lives a happy, simple life to the end of her days, and that is that (listen, there wasn't enough femslash in the Dishonored fandom).
> 
> Con/Crit welcome.


End file.
